


The Longest Night

by servalansflowers19



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Injury, Tobacco use, Violence, as canon as i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servalansflowers19/pseuds/servalansflowers19
Summary: But what did the Autumn of Terror look like for those who saw it from afar?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Longest Night

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** Major, enormous, cannot-unsee spoilers for the AC Syndicate Jack the Ripper DLC. Basically, if you haven’t played it, don’t read this. Go and play it, it’s very good, and then come back. I’ll still be here.

_And every demon wants his pound of flesh  
_ _But I like to keep some things to myself_  
_I like to keep my issues strong  
_ _It's always darkest before the dawn_

\- Florence + The Machine

My dear -------,

Can you find it in yourself to forgive the long delay between your letter and this response? I cannot plead busyness, illness or lack of time. The most honest answer is that I had no wish to answer your questions about those three dreadful months of the past autumn. I delayed and tarried, knowing that you had heard the bare facts of the matter from Evie.

It was unfair of me. You did not ask for the gory details, or imply that you did not trust the twins’ judgement. The true friend that you have always been, you asked after me, and you asked after Cecil.

The truth is that I had no desire to pay another visit to those days. However, since no one knows when you will be back in England, the least I can do is try to answer your letter as best I can. Perhaps it would be wise to set all the memories on paper. Perhaps there is balm in Gilead, as that troubled American poet had written, but I doubt that even his stories can approximate this horror.

If we were believers, I would say that some higher power had watched over our plans in the past year. As early as March, Jacob and I had agreed that Cecil should spend the summer away from England, for several reasons: to see a world different from the one he grew up in, to clamber, shoot and leap where no one would comment (there is no stopping him – he is made of motion, like his father), and also to train under someone who is not his father (Jacob, unsurprisingly, insisted on this). To this was added my own fond hope that he would pick up some Arabic in the process, and that his youthful boredom would be allayed.

Therefore, Cecil and I loitered happily in the Mediterranean until the winter made itself felt there as well. It was already November by the time we had reached Calais. The journey back was tiring and we were in a foul mood, exhausted and not looking forward to the dark winter at home. I left the sullen young man in the café of our hotel while I went to check if any messages from England were waiting for us in the usual spot.

The first message was not unexpected, and not the first of its kind: ‘London trouble, straight to the country’, - no signature, just Jacob’s familiar, dreadful handwriting. It was the agreed signal that stopping by London to pay him a visit would be unwise and we should proceed to the country house.

Now, as I look at the note (I have pulled out my entire sad archive of this affair), I wonder again how many people would find it terse and harsh. Yet that was the agreement established a long time ago: all written missives were to be vague and unsigned, as my letter to you will also be.

It had been a decision consciously made, and mutually agreed upon, that no trace of Cecil Frye would exist in London until he was an adult and fully trained. The arrangement has worked well for a long time: the dutiful companion and child-minder stayed in the country house, keeping busy (when have you ever seen me idle?) to the background of the endlessly entertaining village gossip. The very busy Mr. Something-or-Other would show up occasionally, on a quick visit from his important work in the metropolis, whatever that was. This gave Cecil a safe place to grow up. It also gave any brothers and sisters a safe house where they could lie low or recuperate.

Meanwhile, Mr. Frye could be whatever he needed to be in London: an evasive recluse, a confirmed bachelor with his own rooms, a man-about-town, a slightly shady businessman, with no attachments, light on his feet. I do not know if you have ever visited that sorry set of rooms in London. If you have, you will never have found a trace of me, and especially not of Cecil. The souvenirs from his travels with Evie he displayed almost defiantly, and whyever not? If anyone had thought to threaten Jacob Frye with the safety of his sister or her husband, they would have had to wait for him to stop laughing.

But back to that note that awaited me in Calais: now I feel sickened when I recall my initial reaction. I would have to check the train times all over again. Instead of stopping over in London for at least one night without the clatter of trains and ships, there would be no real rest until we were back at the country house, now probably damp and gloomy after months of absence. Shaking my head and rolling my eyes, I opened the second message, and with it, the horror began.

Never, ever in my life had I expected to be so filled with dread at the sight of Evie Frye’s elegant hand. And the message was almost the same:

‘London critically dangerous. He is missing. Go straight home. Will write as soon as know more – your dear friend’

I almost sat down where I stood, both notes still in my hand, and to my infinite dread, both undated. I scrambled through the hastily ripped envelopes, trying to piece together the postmarks. Weeks had passed between the two notes, and Evie’s note had been waiting for us for more than two weeks. After it there was nothing, a gulf of silence as wide as the channel, and the order to go home and wait.

For once in my life I regretted my hedonistic habit of ignoring all news from England while spending time on the Continent. I scoured the post office, two cafés and finally the hotel lobby for all the newspapers from England I could find. I made my way back to our table with my bag stuffed to the brim with yellowing newsprint.

And there was Cecil, right where I left him, pouring himself yet another coffee. I watched him as he glanced over the busy room with that charming composure and slight _ennui_ of a seventeen-year-old. He was trying to look dreadfully serious, although his biggest concern was probably if Miss Rose, the landlord’s daughter, would still be in the village by the time we had returned. He was simply dying to impress her with his newly learned skills and Mediterrannean mannerisms.

With forced composure, I waited while Cecil, ever the young gentleman, poured my coffee. At last, able to speak, I informed him that we would not be stopping in London and could therefore have a quiet night in the hotel room in Calais. Cecil did not seem unduly distressed, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief, bravely attempting to take a sip of coffee, although my stomach was churning.

“Did you get word from Sir Garter?” Cecil asked, and I almost choked on the sweet, milky drink.

“Yes,” I muttered. “Once more he interferes with the travel plans.” Pretending annoyance, I grumpily looked away.

I am not sure if I had ever mentioned this to you, but as a very young boy, Cecil thrived on a steady diet of Arthurian legends. Even Sir Thomas Malory's florid verse would not deter him. Imagine, then, the little boy’s joy when he learned that his own father was a knight! Of course, the joy was much diminished upon discovering that the selfsame father, Sir Jacob Frye, did not have a decent horse, or a proper sword, or even a scrap of armour. This almost led to tears, and to Jacob trying to explain to Cecil what the Order of the Sacred Garter was.

Now, as I fought to keep calm and still, I could see nothing but Jacob’s pained grin when his son, in all innocence, began calling him ‘sir Garter’. The helpless rolling of his eyes, that resigned tilt of his head, time and again, would not leave my mind. For the first time in months, I missed him with an almost physical pain, made worse by that damned note in my pocket.

“Why all the newspapers?” Cecil then wanted to know. I snapped at him that, unlike the young and the careless, a person my age had to keep abreast of the goings-on in the world. It was a mean and cruel response, but it assured that he would be mortally offended and ask no further questions. I could keep my mouth shut in front of him, but would never be able to lie. And I had no truth to tell him, not yet.

It was only when Cecil was firmly asleep that I could let the mask slip as I pored over the newspapers. My fingers turned black with lead as I desperately tried to fill in the void between those two terse notes from Jacob and Evie.

First came the headlines, loudly announcing the murders in Whitechapel. It was not the gristly matter that sickened me at first. It was the foul, shameless delight that oozed from every line of newsprint, describing the murdered prostitutes and the dreadful surroundings where they met their end. Before my eyes unrolled a story to shock and delight the respectable London, for they could gaze on the butchered women with shameless curiosity, safe in the knowledge that these poor souls were far removed from their respectable lives. They were already fallen, and now their grisly deaths were open to the hypocritical eyes, the readers quietly salivating as their imagination provided the insalubrious details that must have preceded the murders.

But then came the names, and I thanked heaven that Cecil was asleep, because I sat at the small hotel table with my lead-stained fingers clutching at my own face. Those were the names – nicknames, pseudonyms, what will you – that I knew. Against the grimy, dead lines of newsprint, stood the faces, the voices, the gestures and more than one memory.

One article after another added to the list, until all the names had been strung together like a bloodied rosary. Is that how the news had first reached Jacob, a jumble of letters in unfeeling type? Did he flick open the paper with that nonchalant twist of his hand, only to find the first of the names?

Jacob had met Mary Ann in the gutter. She had been so drunk she had attacked him with a broken bottle when he tried to talk to her. Anyone who could break a bottle of gin so expertly after emptying it was a promising recruit, he had told her later.

And then, barely a week later, he would have found the Little Chap slaughtered. Jacob used to complain he was forever losing track of all the Annies and Marys that London was full of. Someone so boisterous and charming, Annie Chapman, was consequently nicknamed ‘the Little Chap’.

It took me a few moments to understand who the murderer’s third victim, Elizabeth Stride, had been. When Jacob had first met her she had gone by Lizzie Gustafs. Proud of her speed on the ground as well as on the rooftops, she changed her name to Stride, I finally remembered.

By the time the horrid list had reached Catherine Eddowes (surely you remember her - “Stop calling me Eddie! My name is Catherine!”, to which Jacob always replied with, “Of course, my dear Eddie”), I checked the date on Evie’s note again. It was sent some time in October, and now I stared at the last, and latest, newsheet in my hands. It informed me in shameless detail that Mary Jane Kelly (“Someone has allowed themselves a luxury of two first names, in case one wears out” – Jacob would heckle until she would burst into a rage!) was found on, of all the dates, on the ninth of November.

It was the sight of that date, 9th November, that made me all but forget the murdered friends and students. Evie must have reached London by then. What had happened? Did Jacob call her? Did she find Mary Jane, eviscerated in that filthy bed? Did my friend, whom I had not seen in years, return to London to receive such a gift on her fortieth birthday?

Where was she? In those choking, foul mists that descended without fail every November, who was my friend looking for, now that she was back in London, but without her brother at her side? Had Henry come with her, or was she stalking through the miasma of Whitechapel on her own, my beautiful, formidable Evie Frye?

And worst of all, did Jacob see his fortieth birthday?

Would there be another?

Our hotel room had one of those overly large windows with a pointless shelf around it, large enough to almost serve as a balcony. Opening the window, I started across the lights into the darkness towards London.

I had barely eaten any supper, and even water now made me retch. Therefore – and I know you will laugh – I reached for the one thing I could stomach. I had promised Jacob that I would behave while traveling with Cecil, and I had almost kept that promise. But now, faced with the darkness across the channel, my resolve broke down. I found the packet of cigarettes that I had been hiding from myself, and Cecil, in the deepest recesses of my bag.

It took me no less than five attempts to light the damned thing. The pointless cursing at the matches reminded me of Freddie Abberline. Another name in the paper, another living memory of Jacob (“I have never seen a sight more patriotic than darling Freddie shaking like a flag atop the Buckingham palace”). Had he thought to speak with Jacob? Did he even get a chance? Had Evie spoken to him?

The wind had changed course, slapping me in the face with icy, salty rain. It irritated me beyond reason, almost extinguishing my, by now third, cigarette and worst of all – I was beyond reason – making me rub my eyes like a small, tearful child.

The worst had come in the form of the murderer’s first letter, in red ink and childish handwriting. I don’t know if you had ever seen it reproduced in your corner of the world. The goddamn thing was plastered all over London.

 _‘I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it.’_ , the letter read. _‘Red ink is fit enough I hope.’_

He had signed it “Jack the Ripper”. Even if he had not signed that name, Jacob would have known the handwriting instantly.

I glanced over to where Cecil was sleeping. He had turned away into the wall, resentful that he had no privacy once again. Now, the sullen resentment forgotten in the arms of sleep, he had turned over. I had realised a few days ago that Cecil would start shaving soon. I had wondered idly if Jacob’s spare razor had been left at the country house, and if not, would his son use that as an excuse to grow a beard, like the one his father had once sported?

And now this lad, on the cusp of youth rather than childhood, slept soundly in a dry bed, mouth a little open, reminiscent of that infant bundle that had made Jacob tremble. It had been years ago, and an unusually quiet night, when the sight of Cecil sleeping drove Jacob almost to tears, then to anger, until the story finally rolled out of him (it had taken a good dose of cognac, of course).

Jacob had been asking around for a while about a child of a woman who had been murdered by Starrick’s men. Orphans in London could disappear faster than a rock thrown into the Thames. But Jacob persisted, stubborn as a bulldog, and just as tactful, until he had found this particular orphan in Lambeth Asylum.

“At least he is alive,” I had said with, as I now saw, unwarranted optimism.

“I would not call that living,” Jacob told me through gritted teeth. “I doubt you have seen the inside of that place.”

Jacob could not bear it, the thought of this little Jack cowering on a wet pallet in Lambeth Asylum while Jacob’s own son slept soundly in a warm and dry nursery. When he had finally realised that was the problem, the answer was clear. We had discussed the details, we accused each other of bringing politics into a story far more dire than our philosophy, we weighed the possibilities, but Jacob’s mind – like mine – had already been made up.

“That’s proper red, Mr, Frye,” young Jack had said once at the sight of blood. He had laughed, Jacob had told me once, at that historical affectation of dipping a white kerchief into the blood of the assassinated. He had learned to write, eventually, but even Jacob, never much of a wordsmith himself, gave up on expecting proper grammar from his Jack the Lad.

“Red ink is fit enough I hope,” Jack had written, and remembered to mention ginger beer (Jacob had poured that stuff down his throat after Lambeth, desperate to see the boy eat and drink properly). His Jack had made sure that everyone knew whose hands had been doing the grisly work in Whitechapel. Jack’s letters made sure Jacob knew what his efforts had brought about.

In a dreadful moment that seemed as long as that entire damned night, I found myself wondering if it would be more merciful that Jacob had been spared this entire morbid vaudeville, that he was already gone. Few of our brothers and sisters die peacefully in their beds, and he would have been ready. It felt more bearable than the thought of him walking alone through London, littered with the corpses of his students, his proud young women, his – in the hidden depths of his sentimental heart – his little Rooks.

At that moment I heard footsteps. Cecil had woken up.

“You are up early,” he said, rubbing his face. Then he saw the open window, and the pile of newspapers, and had probably realised that I had not gone to bed at all.

Before I could say a word, he picked up the newspapers and flicked through them. When he looked up, his face equal parts concerned and confused, he looked so very much like Jacob.

“Is Sir Garter in trouble?” Cecil asked.

“I believe he is,” I had said. “But I cannot tell how, or where.”

“He wrote from London,” Cecil persisted. “How long ago?”

“Weeks,” I told him.

“Then we should go to London,” Cecil said, voice rising dangerously. I shook my head.

“We are not going to London,” I said as firmly as I could.

“Why not?”

“Because your aunt said we should not,” I explained. By this time, I must admit, I was holding onto the window frame. It had been a long night, and with Cecil’s questions my last reserves of strength were flowing away.

“Aunty Evie is in London?” Cecil whispered. “Then where is – “

And what could I tell him that would not be blind and terrifying guesswork?

“I do not know,” I whispered back. We stared at each other, the pile of papers between us, both pretending the strength we did not have.

“What do we know, then?” Cecil asked me. I joined him at the table and began to explain what I had gleaned from the newspapers. He listened, asking questions here and there, sometimes shaking his head, sometimes biting his lip nervously.

“Now you know as much as I do,” I sighed. Exhausted, I reached for the mangled packet of cigarettes again.

“Can I have one of those?” Cecil asked timidly.

I stared at him in disbelief, and while I stared, he shyly took a cigarette out of the packet.

“You do realise that your father will tear our heads off,” I said.

Cecil looked at me shyly again, but then he grinned.

“That’s good, in fact,” he said. “It will mean he is alive.”

***

I have read that people in great distress, or at least ladies in sentimental novels, report that their vision darkened on receiving terrible news. I am not much for sentimental novels, or penny dreadfuls, for that matter, but perhaps there is some truth even to those hackneyed phrases. I can barely remember the rest of our journey from Calais to England, or the train ride home. It is all darkened, as though we traveled in a permanent night. As the train rolled past London, both Cecil and I stared through the grimy window, then back at each other, helpless and silent in the crowded compartment, superstitiously refraining from any speculation or encouragement.

Have I just tried to divest myself of sentimentality? To you I can admit that, every now and then, in amongst the dead faces and flashes of red in my head, I selfishly felt sorry for myself at the thought of never seeing Jacob again. But then I would look at Cecil, and the ache would grow stronger. Through the long miles of the railroad, I could not stop imagining Jacob, alone with the thought that he would not see his son again.

And knowing Jacob, if he had been given time to think, he would have successfully placed the blame squarely on his own shoulders. Broad though they were, I doubted they could carry the five dead girls, the son he would not see again, and the all-but-adoptive son, whose existence was, in Jacob’s eyes, no-one’s fault but Jacob’s. For all his bravado, and _bonvivant_ airs, I have never known anyone who – eventually – questioned his own worth and decisions as much as Jacob Frye.

But now I am straying too close to philosophical morality again, and you did not ask about that. Cecil and I reached the country house not knowing what news, if any, would await us there. The mail would have been placed inside by the caretaker. I desperately fumbled with the keys to let us into the house, and to make sure I laid my hands on any messages before Cecil did.

I should have known better, knowing whose son that boy was. He managed to slip through the barely open door before me, spinning like a dancer, and reach the small table in the hallway where the letters waited. I walked in to find him rifling furiously through the envelopes, until he found the one he sought.

“That’s auntie’s handwriting,” he said, and tore into the envelope. He read the message and stood stock still.

The message was once again short, once again in Evie’s hand, but this time I read it with great relief. It said,

‘Stay put. I am bringing him home. Stay strong, for both of us.’

That note answered several questions at a glance: firstly, it confirmed that Evie was alive, secondly, that Jacob was alive as well (Evie would not have minced words) and thirdly, that he was healthy enough to travel. Lastly, if the note had reached the house before we did, Evie and Jacob would not be far behind.

While I allowed myself a sigh of relief, Cecil, the note still in his hand, rushed back to the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked. 

“To London,” he snapped.

“Whatever for? She said she was bringing him back!”

Cecil stared at me as though I had lost my mind, and finally shouted,

“Bringing him back? What if she is bringing him back in a box?”

By the time I had collected myself, he was already halfway through the door. I grabbed at his arms, trying to turn him around. A ridiculous effort, believe me, as he is already taller than I am and most likely capable of lifting me over his head.

“You are not going anywhere!” I said. “We stay here and we wait!”

“Not a chance,” Cecil growled.

It must have been the fact that we were safe, and the relief that note had brought me, that allowed me to finally yell after days of whispers and silence.

“Cecil Frye, remember whose son you are!” I shouted.

Could I have said anything more absurd? But it helped, because Cecil stopped to stare at me.

“What the bloody hell does that mean?” he asked with, I believe, genuine confusion. I shook my head, wondering the same thing myself, still holding his arms.

“That you are courageous, and passionate, and too bloody impetuous by half,” I finally said.

“And equally noisy,” a voice next to us said.

We both turned to see Evie standing in the doorway to the sitting room. Our mouths open, we stared at her mutely, like those little shepherds witnessing the apparition of the mother of God. We would have probably fallen to our knees, at that.

But this was no immaculate vision in white. Rather, she stood there with the lines of Indian sun on her face, silver bangles on her hands, changed and returned, the perfect _Samhara Kali_. Cecil looked at me, then at her, and all but fell into her arms.

She held him firmly, calling him her little nephew – her little nephew who was probably equal to her in height by now – and, eyes closed, she whispered, “It is all right now, it is all right. He is here, he is safe.”

“Where is he?” Cecil asked. “Can I see him?”

“Of course. He is in the back garden, in fact,” Evie finally said, releasing Cecil from her embrace. He looked to me, and I simply motioned for him to go on.

Once Cecil had disappeared, Evie and I looked at each other in silence. With Cecil out of the room, a slight crack appeared in the mask of focused calm. I could not tell now which of the lines of her face were the marks of the sunny years in India, and which had been carved by the last months in London.

“Jacob will probably be spending a good deal of time in the garden while he is here,” Evie said to me. “He has not seen the open sky for some time.”

“Where did you find him?” I asked.

The shadows on her face darkened some more.

“In the basement of Lambeth Asylum,” she said.

I could barely mutter, “How long?”

“More than a month,” Evie replied.

“And Jack is...” I started tentatively, “... At peace?”

The silver bangles around Evie’s wrist jangled softly as she curled her hand into a fist and slowly released it.

“I know that he is dead,” she said, voice hollow. “I do not particularly care if he is at peace.”

I nodded, feeling like a fool, but a very relieved fool. Evie nodded back with a ghost of a smile.

“How badly is Jacob hurt?”

Evie grimaced.

“He’s lost an eye,” she said.

“That’s injured,” I said before I could stop myself. “How badly is he otherwise hurt?”

And now Evie embraced me, and we leaned on each other for a moment.

“Time will tell,” she said.

We heard raised voices from the back garden, but not raised in anger. The back door opened, and I could hear Jacob instructing Cecil to clean himself up, first of all. His son laughed.

“Am I now to take orders from a cut-price pirate?”

“I can’t wait to see you talking to your aunt like that,” Jacob growled again. “That should be a show worth watching.”

And Cecil was smiling, no, grinning exuberantly. I slipped past him and made my way into the garden.

Jacob was sitting on one of the cast iron benches, his shoulders slightly slumped, and looked up when I approached.

He was pale, starved of sunlight, and the skin under the eyepatch was still angry, red and taut around the slowly healing wound. I could see no other injury on him, other than the fresh little nicks on his chin, obviously from stubbornly trying to shave. Seeing him like that, I will admit that I, too, could not find it in me to wish peace upon our Jack the Lad.

“Welcome home,” Jacob said to me.

“Likewise,” I replied, sitting down next to him, hands on my knees. My hand reached out and hovered over his, and I must admit, I was almost afraid to touch him. He looked as though the lightest touch would hurt. Still, he reached up, intertwining his fingers with mine.

“You look terrible,” he said airily. “When was the last time you slept?”

I shook my head at him.

“You’re the one to talk,” was all I could say.

***

I shall finish this already overlong letter here, for several reasons. You asked to hear my story, and Cecil’s, and this I have told you. I am not the one to tell you Evie’s story, or Jacob’s, for that matter.

Secondly, for all the good this writing has done me, I am still more exhausted than relieved. I do not know if I shall ever bury this horse in the ground. Yet my burden is comparatively light.

And thirdly, I have just realised I have sat up writing all through the night, the day is dawning. At this point I should like to exchange this pen and paper for a pot of coffee, which I must make myself (Jacob is still too much of an Englishman to be trusted with that operation).

I thank you again for thinking of me, and I beg you to not hold either my lack of response, or this overly lengthy response, against me.

With all my love and affection,

\--------------------

**Author's Note:**

> End note: People familiar with the Assassin’s Creed franchise know that the series has always taken liberties with historical domain characters. In the Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate DLC, Jack the Ripper, the creators implied that the ‘canonical five’ victims of Jack the Ripper were members of the Assassin Brotherhood in London. I’ve consciously gone with that part of the game canon and accordingly took liberties as well.
> 
> I feel I need to acknowledge that the five murdered women were real people with real lives. If you want to know more about them, a good book on the subject is [The Five by Hallie Rubenhold](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/13/the-five-by-hallie-rubenhold-review-the-untold-lives-of-the-rippers-victims). A big shout-out goes to [Estel of the Eyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_of_the_eyrie/pseuds/estel_of_the_eyrie) for recommending it to me (and check out her stuff while you’re at it).
> 
> Jack the Ripper murders were possibly one of the first big “media events” to sensationalise murders of sex workers. That grim list of names is still growing daily all over the world. That same mode of reporting these death is still very much with us, objectifying, degrading and further endangering sex workers. We would do well to remember that before giving in to clickbait. We owe those murdered women and men respect, dignity and a heartfelt wish to rest in peace.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and may your fandoms thrive.


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